Secretary of Agriculture Announces Reorganization of the USDA 

On July 24th, United States Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, announced a planned relocation of 2,500 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees from the National Capital Region (NCR) in Washington DC to five USDA hub locations around the country. The press release from Secretary Rollins, cites an eight percent increase in the number of employees and a fourteen percent salary raise over the last four years as the main reason for the reorganization plan. The reorganization plan itself outlines four central goals:  

1. To ensure that the USDA can afford its workforce, with the usage of voluntary programs like the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) and Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA). 
2. Bring USDA employees closer to their customers via the relocation from DC offices.
3. Eliminate bureaucracy by reducing or eliminating stand-alone regional offices. 
4. Consolidate redundant support functions. 

On July 30th, the Senate held a hearing to review the newly introduced reorganization proposal. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Steven Vaden was present to explain the administration’s reasons and expectations for the reorganization. Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar began the hearing by stating that the reorganization plan was released without congressional or stakeholder input. Some issues discussed during the hearing included this lack of communication as well as the reasoning behind the locations of the hubs. 

On the issue of congressional notice, Deputy Secretary Vaden told the committee that because USDA employees are those most affected they were told first and cited the 30-day public comment period as the time for stakeholder feedback. In discussing hub locations he stated that the administration is attempting to learn from the mistakes they made with the relocation of the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the previous Trump administration, claiming that, when deciding on which hubs were to be used for relocation, they selected those that already have a significant number of USDA employees as well as states that have a lower cost of living than DC. 

The five hubs proposed in the reorganization plan are Raleigh, NC, Kansas City, MO, Indianapolis, IN, Fort Collins, CO, and Salt Lake City, UT, only two of which are among the top ten agriculture producing states, which led many Senators to question the reasoning behind the decision. Senator John Hoeven, (R-ND) noted that his district in North Dakota does not have a USDA site within six hundred miles despite the fact that North Dakota is a top producing agricultural state.

In addition to the hearing on July 30th, a total of 38 representatives have signed two letters–one on August 7th and another on August 13th–to Secretary Rollins echoing the concerns of their colleagues from the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry hearing. 

Many agriculture stakeholder groups seem to be in agreement with Congress’s concerns about the reorganization plan, especially when looking back at the last USDA relocation attempt by the Trump Administration. The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report on the impacts of the 2019 relocation of ERS and NIFA, which were meant to attract and retain highly qualified staff. In fact, however, both the size of the workforce and productivity declined. ERS produced fewer key reports, and NIFA took longer to process grants. 

With the massive USDA cuts already seen this year, including approximately sixty-two million dollars in cancelled or frozen funds, it is farmers who are being put most at risk. In addition to depending on USDA funding and grants to keep their operations running, farmers across the country rely on research done by organizations like ERS and NIFA to help them make informed decisions and mitigate the impact of climate change.  

The comment period expires on August 26th, so it may be weeks until it is seen if any stakeholder input is incorporated into the finalized USDA reorganization plan.